


understudy.

by indeedee (never_minde)



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Fucked-Up Fluff, Grooming, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Kissing, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Praise Kink, Touch-Starved, brother issues, mentioned / hypothetical Leon x Hop, unintended but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:49:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_minde/pseuds/indeedee
Summary: Raihan was used to being second-best.Raihan wasn’t used to the idea that second-best came in more forms than one.
Relationships: Hop/Kibana | Raihan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	understudy.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter thread that got out of hand again

Raihan was used to being second-best.

Raihan wasn’t used to the idea, that second-best came in more forms than one.

“You did good, Little Leon,” Raihan remembers saying to Leon’s kid brother—Hop, he had to remind himself, then, a thought that’s almost laughable now—when he clasped the boy’s hand and presented him with the Dragon Badge. He’d meant the nickname as teasing. Though he’d also meant it, when he said the kid had battled well with his team.

Raihan wasn’t expecting the bright, wholly pure shine of happiness in the kid’s eyes: wasn’t expecting to see Hop light up at being nicknamed for his brother as a compliment.

As if merely being compared to his brother in a few diminutive words wasn't a joke at Hop's expense, in fact was the kindest word in the world.

That was Raihan’s first step down the rabbit hole, though of course he didn’t know it at the time.

* * *

Once he realizes how much Hop loved Leon—when Raihan knows, how much the world loves Leon—

And how it would have been. Growing up in that shadow.

Yet not trying to escape it.

It takes Raihan a long time to wrap his head around the concept. Being in that shadow, drowned in it even, yet staying that way by choice.

Swimming in the thing that overshadowed you because it was a matter of striving to reach the source. Wanting to be seen in the same light.

Not like Raihan. Not exactly. Who fought to cast a larger shadow over the world himself. To overtake the spotlight, control the source.

Ultimately, Raihan realized in the end.

Just wanting to be noticed.

Wanting—

* * *

It clicks.

Eventually. And things cascade from there so fast Raihan's head spins.

The kid's so easy that Raihan wonders sometimes if he shouldn’t be committed.

For the way Hop looks at him now. Goes wide-eyed with wonder at every soft compliment or touch.

Like _Raihan_ is the miracle. Like Hop isn't the one carrying around the Hero of Many Battles that Raihan spent his adolescence studying, just another pocket monster lined up in a little ball hooked onto his belt. By choice, if Raihan has the story right.

It's…it's insane. It makes Raihan sad, sometimes. How few people know about that, compared to Leon. That Raihan's little lover, the lonely would-be librarian, has already made himself a footnote in Galarian history.

The footnotes in those books don't ever get read. Raihan understands that, he doesn't have to like it.

It makes him pull Hop close. Tell him he's perfect just to feel Hop shaking at the words.

It takes so little for Hop to come undone at the barest hint of kindness. Sometimes Raihan doesn't realize when he goes too far.

He has to remember how it got this far to begin with.

And how scared Hop is (and it hurts; but, Raihan knows, Hop can't help it) of being left again.

Taken for granted but never taken along.

Raihan can't imagine what on Earth Leon was or wasn't thinking. Every time Raihan sees Hop look at _him_ with those bright gold eyes like Raihan hung the moon the way Hop's always looked at Leon.

And Leon accepted that. Took it in stride. Thought it was normal.

Like Hop existed to praise him.

Raihan praises Hop so much sometimes the kid all but _comes_ from it, nothing else, and then Raihan praises him some more.

Tries not to think too hard whether he's making things better or worse.

* * *

Raihan strokes Hop's hair sometimes at night (and why does no one question this? Raihan wonders, too, even selfishly refusing not to take advantage. because he wants him here), when Hop's spending the night at his apartment like he often does, and Hop leans into the touch. Each time.

Like no one ever stroked his hair before when he was sick, or sad. Or just because that's what you did with kids.

Did no one in their family remember they had two? Raihan genuinely wonders sometimes.

Hop does it with any kind of touch. Even (especially) when it’s just simple brushes on skin like this, innocent things. Nonsexual.

It's…sweet.

It…also kind of makes him want to cry, sometimes?

And Raihan doesn't think he's cried since the first time he lost to Leon at the end of his Gym Challenge. When Leon was 11 and Raihan was 13, and Hop wasn't a name Raihan would know for another god-knows-how-many-years.

Raihan knows none of this is right.

Raihan can't get enough of the way Hop looks at him. Raihan thinks to himself in his worst moments that to ignore what was always there for him like this, Leon has got to be the stupidest motherfucker in the world.

* * *

Hop licks his neck sitting straddled across Raihan's lap on the couch, and it's harder to remember.

Hard to make himself think about how much of this is okay, or isn't, when Raihan tugs Hop back and sees those gold eyes full of not just adoration but trust. God, he's so sweet.

Raihan tries not to wonder if Hop would do this for Leon. If Leon asked.

He knows the answer. It makes him ill.

Raihan tries not to wonder if Hop wants to do this, for Leon. Has thought about it.

Because that's just a thought that's so heartbreaking Raihan _has_ to kiss him.

You're so perfect, Raihan pants between kisses, drinks in the way Hop goes boneless in his arms, keens at every touch and word shivers like his entire body is one erogenous zone for Raihan to set off.

You have so much potential, Raihan tells him, desperate for Hop to believe it, licking the words into his skin:

They don’t see it, but I do.

* * *

Raihan wonders what Leon would, will do.

If, when—how, Raihan supposes, what it will come down to—he finds out that Hop's been in his rival's bed for months.

That Raihan…wishes he wasn't sometimes. Even now. Wishes he could take that first kiss back. Except Hop's so goddamn beautiful. And Raihan, Raihan _knows_ —

Raihan knows without having to think about it. That breaking up, whatever reason he gave Hop, it'd break him.

Raihan can't do that. He can't. Not unless he's sure that Leon could _be_ there, be the brother or the guardian or the support Hop needed to get through his first baby-broken heart.

And Leon…isn’t.

He can't be. Or else Hop wouldn't be clinging on to Raihan like this, nights upon nights on repeat.

Letting the Gym Leader strip him down and kiss down the flat planes of his torso, making him gasp and whine and mewl at the faint drag of Raihan's teeth.

Half his heart wishing in the back of his mind that _anyone_ cared enough to make him stop, for god's sake. Because he should.

Because Raihan doesn't want to.

Raihan, he adores his baby so much. Hop feels so _right_ beneath his hands that Raihan can't keep them from sliding where they shouldn't. When Hop is inviting, even asking.

Raihan tells himself, rationalizes, maybe. He _can’t_ end this here. _  
_

Not until he knows it won’t just be Hop alone again without him.

Time passes.

The world lets Raihan have what Hop deserved, but not without the stain of wrongness, and the want.

* * *

"I love you," Hop tells him constantly, coming up behind to hug him, at odd moments. Buries his face in Raihan's side.

His voice is saying beneath the words: I miss you. Without Raihan having even gone anywhere, if he could make himself.

Like Hop takes for granted Raihan will.

Raihan means it when he tells Hop he loves him too. Raihan says it enough that anyone else would be sick of hearing it by now, but this is Hop, and Hop—

Honestly Raihan wonders. He doesn't know the rest of their family. But…

Did even _Leon_ ever say the words out loud?

**Author's Note:**

> was originally gonna write that leon confrontation & then realized, when is leon going to notice? he's happily living away in his tower. and that felt worse, and that was kind of the whole point.  
> so i left it there.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/psychic_surge) (@psychic_surge)


End file.
